The two giant eaters looked back at Koram with their compound eyes, looked at each other, then silently shuffled away from him, to make more room. Koram harrumphed, and the party made space so that two more giant eaters could enter a good distance behind Koram. As I tried to figure out the best way to attack, another dozen normal eaterlings scurried out. These all had the furry portions of their body shaved.
"You small ones will spread out and look for your unshaven kin," Koram said disdainfully. "Once you find out where they went, come back and help me look for a way into this place. Once we establish a foothold, we will…" His voice trailed off as he finally saw me. The arrogant young master blinked his dark eyes a few times, then blinked a few more when he realized I didn't disappear. Finally, he began to speak.
"What," he spat. "Are you. Doing. Here."
"Minding my own business, Koram," I replied, unable to bring myself to be polite. "What are you doing out here? In space."
"You always seem to know where I am going," he continued, ignoring my own question. "Every time I'm on the verge of something big."
"I assure you, Koram," I replied, "If I had some magic way to know where you were going, I'd never run into you again. Your personality has all the charm of a sexually frustrated slug."
He reared back as if he had been slapped.
"You dare—"
"Yes, I dare," I interrupted impatiently, "and so does everyone else you've probably talked to in the last few days. You were beaten half to death by a small furry animal that was several substages below you. I refuse to believe everyone failed to find out about that."
"You!" he shouted, pointing his finger at me. "You told them!"
Nestor, I told my bonded companion. Go ahead now. Everyone is distracted.
Yes-yes! the little mouse said, indenting the button on the side of the arch. While Koram had been talking to himself and yelling at his giant monsters, I had been quietly reading the runes of script written along the sides of the arch. Once his party had moved far enough away from the device, Nestor had crept up to it so that he could deactivate the portal.
The shimmering curtain of energy under the tall structure fizzled out the next moment. Koram whirled about to look at it.
"It stopped working," he said, his voice full of horror. "Impossible… it was in perfect condition when I found it…"
"Where and when did you find it?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral and hoping that he was stupid enough to tell me.
My hope was soon rewarded.
"We've always had it," he stammered, still looking at the giant archway that no longer led to his home. "It was in a museum dedicated to our family's ancient history. We hadn't even realized it was still functional, because it was so old no one alive had any idea how to use it."
"But the instructions are literally written on the sides," I pointed out. "They're written in the language of your Charter."
"Until now, we had only allowed a few of our eaterling slaves to enter it," he continued, not hearing me. "I was just given permission to explore it myself…" He turned his wide eyes back at me. "Why are you so calm? Don't you realize how bad this is?"
"No," I admitted, shrugging slightly, before asking another question. Koram's locating of this place was a very bad thing. I needed to know just how much he had learned about Vessa's ship-body, or if he even knew about the Soulships.
"Did your family know where it was supposed to lead?" I asked. "Do your people remember anything about it?"
"I already said we don't!" the idiot snapped. "The arches were supposed to trace back toward the very founding of our family. They represented our triumph over the former tyrants of the night sky. No one was allowed to go near them until a few months ago, when a slave accidentally struck the side of it and activated its power!" He stepped forward, still staring at me with wide eyes. "Do you not see? Do you not see what high honor it was for me to be chosen for its use? Had it remained open, I could have shown my family this mighty vessel. We could have secured it for our use, and been unrivaled in the night sky! But I had to run into you again, and everything I worked so hard for was once again dashed to the side!"
He suddenly looked around, eyes still wide.
"I get it now," he began, turning back to me. "This is your home, isn't it?" I tensed, and he saw it. "I knew it! This is how you are always able to find me! You sail across the night sky in this thing, looking for me! The youngest, greatest scion of the Exalted Pillar clan, and the Glorious Star Charter!"
I shook my head at him.
Vessa, I sent, I'm sorry. I wanted to learn as much as I could from him. But I just have to kill him.
I get it, Jas, she sent back to me. Just be careful. Those eaters are extremely dangerous.
So is everything else out here, I thought but didn't say.
"Fix it!" he snapped. "Fix the portal, or I'll rend you limb from limb! I'll crunch your back just like I did the first time we met!"
"No," I replied, "and if you truly believe you can break my back again, you're welcome to try. Or would you rather fight my mouse again?" I added as an afterthought.
Yes-yes! Nestor said excitedly. I-smash!
Calm down, I whispered to the little friend, as a thought just occurred to me. Ask Nova if she can see anything heading towards us.
Meanwhile, Koram had flinched as soon as I mentioned the word 'mouse.'
"Your little mouse isn't even here!" Koram snapped. "And if he was I wouldn't be afraid of him! He can't save you, because I brought my family's own mice!" He gestured toward the giant hyena-roach-lizard-ratmen all around him. "And I'll be able to deal with you myself, because this time I have as many special tricks as you have!"
As he said that last statement, he pulled on a ring, summoning the gauntlet he wore during our last battle. Then he activated the Soulscape gauntlet he wore on his other hand, and leaped towards me, swinging a qi-infused fist.
He has gotten stronger, I thought idly as I stepped to the side, easily dodging his strike. His increase in strength confused me, because he had been at the very end of the qi pool stage before. But his new power didn't feel like a being in the third stage of Advancement, so I wondered if perhaps he had done something to temporarily increase his power.
Quite possibly so, dear, my grandmother said to me, as I sidestepped another blow from my still-overmatched opponent. There are all manners of dangerous elixirs and other shortcuts one can take, which will lead to tremendous short-term gains, at the cost of one's long-term Advancement. I suspect this one had developed a demon in his heart, a fear that kept him from moving forward. So he resorted to shortcuts best left untaken.
I can hardly fault him for that, I said, as I rocked my head from back to left, dodging a painfully predictable flurry of blows from my most irritating enemy. Given my own methods.
Well, yes, but, she started to say. Your own Advancement is… complicated. Watch out, dear, he's about to activate another power.
My unhinged opponent had suddenly slipped a hand into his robe and removed a small, pill-like object.
"I'll show you—" he began, before I cut him off.
"No," I said, covering his gauntlet with my own and twisting downward. The pampered noble cried out in pain, as I carefully pressed his fingers back over the item. "Now stop making me resent your parents, and tell me what this thing is."
Because for all I knew, Koram had just taken out an explosive device to use at close range.
"How are you still so strong?" he gasped, struggling in my grip. "You were nothing when I found you!"
"I suspect my masters are far better than yours," I admitted, dismissing my spear to catch his other gauntlet as he punched out at me. It was becoming easier, and less painful, to summon and dismiss my weapons. As I reflected on that thought, I re-opened his fingers and sucked his pill-item into my Soulscape, sending it a safe distance away from Grandmother Mara's location. She could examine it at a distance, and tell me what it was. And best of all, I would not have to listen to K
oram talk anymore to find out what the item was.
The pampered idiot's eyes widened even more as whatever trump card he had disappeared.
"No," he said, clearly growing more and more frightened of me. He looked over his shoulder and shouted at the hulking eaters behind him. "Don't just stand there, idiots! Attack!"
The evolved eaterlings lunged forward, roaring with their over-sized jaws and mandibles. Their eagerness to fight surprised me, but then I realized that their earlier restraint was likely more a testament to their hatred for Koram than for any kind of respect.
I bit back a curse in several languages as I positioned Koram between myself and his minions. But the very next moment, he managed to escape my grip by dismissing his Soulscape gauntlet and yanking his hand out of his gauntlet, leaving me with just his Sourceweapon.
I shrugged as I dismissed his gear into my Soulscape and re-summoned my spear. I raised it to brace for their charge, but the first two monsters were already too close, swinging massive studded clubs at me.
My enhancements were still active, so I was able to leap clear. But when my jump carried me to the side, a third eater was waiting for me, and had already timed his blow to slam hard into my torso.
My breath exploded from my lungs as I went hurtling away. I fought through the pain, twisting to keep from rolling back down the slope. That proved to be a mistake, because the fourth eater had tracked my fall and rushed to intercept me, pulling his club back for a two-handed swing that was likely aimed at my head.
But then I heard Nova cry out my name, and an angry beam of light blasted into the abomination's head. The monster shrieked and stumbled backward, clutching its scorched face, and I rolled back to my feet, ribs still aching from the force of the earlier blow. Had I been without my flood barrier and new armor, I had no doubt the blow would have broken my torso.
But my recovery qi was already going to work, so I shrugged off the diminishing pain, slashed at the monster's knee, and sprinted away from him. The pack tactics of these creatures surpassed anything else I had fought to this point, especially their more primitive cousins. I could not afford to let them surround me. Nova must have thought the exact same thing, because she yelled at me to run as soon as a massive red fireball slammed down into the already-wounded eater, then followed up with another ball aimed at a cluster of eaterlings that had gathered up to charge me as well.
"She's here too?" I heard Koram call out from behind his bodyguards. "You even stole my new maid? How?"
Nova responded to him with a string of harsh, but completely accurate expletives, before unleashing a bolt of lightning that made the idiot scream in pain.
Listen, both of you, Vessa wrote in our minds. Harpy scouts are starting to notice your position. And I don't think you should actually kill him, Jasper. He has an item on him that will activate upon his death. If he dies, he will probably give away my location.
If he teleports away again, that will happen anyway, I replied, as I strafed the three monsters still charging after me. But then I remembered that if he could have done that, he wouldn't have panicked as soon as the archway deactivated.
Koram interrupted my musings by making the situation far, far worse. He reached into his robes and pulled out another object, throwing it high over his head. As the small ball reached its zenith, it exploded in a blast of bright-yellow light.
"Advance scouts, return for battle!" he shouted.
There was a brief moment of silence as everyone, including his bodyguards and eaterling servants, paused to look at him.
Did he really just… Vessa began to type, before apparently deciding to give up.
"You… colossal… idiot," I said helplessly. "Do you have any idea what else lurks on the surface of this ship?"
He blinked at me. The eater closest to him began clacking his jaws and mandibles.
"Portal!" the thing snapped. "Re-activate! Now!" Then he pointed a large claw at me. "Everyone else! Kill!"
I swore an oath of my own, as I began to run away from the small army charging after me. If Koram managed to escape and tell his family about the Soulship, we were all likely doomed. Vessa would have an organized army chasing after her, one with some of the best resources available.
But first he would have to figure out how to reactivate the portal, I remembered, as well as get past its small furry guard.
Don't-fret, Nestor sent to me as Koram scurried for the archway, got-this.
The next moment, I heard a tiny squeak, followed by the shrillest scream I had ever heard come out of the mouth of a grown man.
I saw Koram fall bottom-first and scamper away from the portal, gibbering madly at the sight of the small, furry mouse. I bit back a laugh, and leaped backwards to put more room between myself and the vermin-like horde after me. I tried to think of a proper attack to deal with foes this powerful and coordinated. I decided to try limiting their mobility, and began working a working a geology spell reinforced by earth qi.
The result wasn't perfect, but it created a wide layer of rocky spikes that wounded the eaterlings and greatly slowed the four eaters. Nova took further advantage of my action by firing a super-charged baton blast into the badly wounded eater, finally finishing it off in a burst of smoke and Source energy.
I fired a wide, fiery blast of my own into another cluster of the smaller eaterlings, growing confident that we might handle this after all, until I received Vessa's next message.
Hurry, she told us. The harpies are coming in mass. They'll be especially excited as soon as they smell all the eaterlings. And distant, more powerful creatures are starting to stir as well, she added, even as I grimaced in disgust over her earlier words.
I bit back a curse at our string of bad luck and tried to consider our new options. Nova would probably have her hands full as soon as she had more aerial foes, so that left me to deal with our ground opponents by myself.
Will-help, Nestor sent to me as he advanced upon Koram. Have-plan.
Wait, I added, don't kill hi-
But the little mouse leaped upon his screaming victim, and everyone, including the eaters, turned to look on in horror as Nestor heaved up and slammed Koram repeatedly into the surface of Vessa's hull, before gripping his enemy's leg and spinning him about. Koram screamed and screamed, and kept screaming when Nestor finally released his grip and sent the formerly arrogant young master hurtling off the ship and into the vastness of space.
There-there, Nestor told me in a satisfied tone. Not-dead. Can't-come-back.
Won't he die eventually? I asked, when whatever protection he has expires?
May-be, the little creature admitted. But-not-soon. Big-jerk. Don't-care.
That would have to do, I decided. If he died while sailing through the void of space, his clan wouldn't have any idea where he went or who killed him. And if he somehow survived, he wouldn't be in any position to describe where he was or make sense of what he saw to anyone he talked to. Nestor was right; Koram was no longer our problem. Permanently.
The eaters and eaterlings had paused again, looking at each other as they all realized their employer was dead. I had to take advantage of their distress while I could and fired a concentrated beam of heat, empowered by fire qi and breath essence. My attack badly scorched a previously unwounded eater along the leg, and Nova hurriedly hit the monster with another blast of her own.
"Harpies incoming!" she shouted from high over my head. "I'll leave the rest of these to you!"
I sighed and hurriedly thought up a new plan, as a stream of monsters began to pick its way through the floor of spikes to battle me.
Try a different weapon, dear, my grandmother advised me. Why don't you use the big one?
Very well, I thought back as I reached into my Soulscape, wincing as I realized this would probably hurt.
The shaft of the weapon was fine, but the crescent moon blade of the two-handed axe was wide enough to cause my transference channels pain—far more than it had to absorb the axe in the first place. But
then the two-handed weapon was in my hands, and I was sprinting for the nearest eater.
The massive creature saw me coming, but he had just impaled his leg on a large spike from my geology spell. His swing at me was awkward, and I ducked under it, then countered with a well-timed strike at his elbow. I felt his own defensive protections engage, then there was a flash of silver light as I overpowered his Source defenses and hacked deep into his arm. The eater let out a chittering howl in pain as his arm nearly disconnected from his body, but I was already moving past him to hack at his un-maimed foot. The blow took out a small chunk of flesh, then I ducked away from his working arm and kicked the back of the leg I had just sliced. As the monster crumpled to one knee, I jumped over its tail, took a powerful, aimed swing, and sliced clean through the top of my enemy's neck.
The creature instantly crumpled to the ground in a cloud of Source energy and a pool of material I had no wish to identify. I turned to look at the two remaining brutes and the few scattered eaterlings still alive with them, feeling much better about my chances now.
Until a flock of winged shapes appeared from over the horizon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There were at least thirty of them, a thoroughly unappealing mix of bat, woman, and some overly furred animal. They shrieked at the sight of our combat, and began drifting closer.
When the smaller eaterlings saw them, they began barking and chittering excitedly, hopping toward them.
"Female!" one of the more rat-faced ones shouted. "Female! Female!"
The nearby eater back-handed the smaller creature.
"Focus!" he roared. "Kill first!"
"Ugh!" Nova shouted from overhead. "Why does everything we fight have to be so gross?"
I did not know, but I resented the fact just as much.
Anchor Knight Page 21
